Goodbye Lasorda : After Two Decades, Manager Decides the Time is Right

Tom Lasorda, who began bleeding Dodger blue when the team still played in Brooklyn, left the job he loved and lived for 20 years when he retired Monday as manager.

Choking back tears at one point and spinning old baseball yarns at another, the 68-year-old Lasorda said health concerns and the desire to spend more time with his family convinced him to leave the dugout and become a team vice president.

Lasorda underwent angioplasty June 26 after it was determined he had a heart attack. He said he was cleared medically to return to the dugout, but realized it made sense to retire.

“For me to get into a uniform again--as excitable as I am--I could not go down there without being the way I am,” Lasorda, his voice shaking, said at a Dodger Stadium news conference. “I decided it’s best for me and the organization to step down . . . That’s quite a decision.”

“It was a heckuva run,” he said.

During his two decades, there were 185 managerial changes in the major leagues. Lasorda became just the fourth big league manager to last into his 20th season--joining Connie Mack, John McGraw and Walter Alston. It was Alston’s retirement after 23 years that opened the job for Lasorda.

Lasorda, who’s spent 47 years with the Dodgers system as a player, scout, coach and manager, led the Dodgers to the World Series championship in 1981 and again in 1988--a memorable five-game victory over the heavily favored Oakland Athletics highlighted by Kirk Gibson’s dramatic pinch-hit homer to win the opening game.

The Dodgers also reached the World Series under Lasorda in 1977 and 1978, and won National League West titles in 1983, 1985 and 1995.

Bill Russell, who played shortstop under Lasorda in the late 1970s and early ‘80s and later had him as a mentor, will remain the interim manager through this season. During Lasorda’s absence, Russell had a 14-16 record.

The decision to step down as the manager was completely his, Lasorda said. He said as recently as Friday, after receiving clearance from his doctors, that he intended to return to the dugout.

Lasorda changed his mind, however, after talking with owner Peter O’Malley and executive vice president Fred Claire.

“Peter gave me all the confidence in the world,” Lasorda said. “Peter told me, ‘You’re the manager. If you want to go down there and put on that uniform, you’re the manager.’ ”

Said O’Malley: “I think it’s fair to say the last three days--Friday, Saturday and Sunday--that he was wrestling with it. Even though he didn’t say it, I could tell that he and Jo [Lasorda’s wife] were wrestling with it.

“As much as he had said after he was hospitalized that he was going to manage again, I could tell that he was wrestling with it.

“And perhaps family and close friends were saying, ‘Hey, Tommy, wait a second. Think about this a little bit more.’ And I think he did.”

Lasorda, who has spent 47 of his 50 years in pro baseball with the Dodger organization grew teary-eyed as he thanked O’Malley for hiring him 20 years earlier.

A few minutes later, though, Lasorda’s eyes lit up as he talked about becoming a vice president, noting with a grin that he always secretly envied the guys in suits.

“I always used to look up at Fred and Al [Campanis] and those guys who were vice presidents, and now I’m a vice president of the Dodgers,” Lasorda said. “That’s an honor and a privilege. And I’m going to do the best job I possibly can for the Dodgers, because I love this organization.

“I’ve been with them for 47 years and I’m hoping that maybe 50 years from now I’ll die a Dodger.”

Lasorda finishes his on-the-field career as a rarity in modern professional sports: He spent two decades managing the same team.

The Dodgers were 41-35 and had a two-game lead in the NL West when Lasorda entered the hospital. They now are tied for second place with the Colorado Rockies, 1 1/2 games behind the San Diego Padres.

Lasorda was the winningest active manager and No. 13 on the career list with a record of 1,599-1,439 and two ties. He ranks 12th on baseball’s career list for games managed (3,040), having surpassed Dick Williams in victories and games managed earlier this season.

As a left-handed pitcher who spent most of his career in the minors and had a 0-4 major league record, Lasorda was part of a different sort of Dodgers lore.

In the mid-1950s, they sent Lasorda down--and signed Sandy Koufax.